EUROPE'S dream of open borders has turned into a "shambolic" nightmare as the migrant crisis reaches unmanageable levels - with even Germany saying it can no longer cope.

The Schengen Zone, which allows passport-free travel between many EU countries, was on the brink of collapse as nations across the continent tightened up controls amid the growing influx of desperate refugees.

Berlin, which this week hit out at Britain for not taking a quota of those arriving, has admitted it has also had enough.

Around 150 migrants an hour, mostly said to be from Syria, are reaching Germany each hour causing it to impose checks on its border with Austria.

Stephan Mayer, a senior member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, who led calls for David Cameron to act, said the escalating issues "directly erodes and endangers Schengen".

Germany had taken in over 100,000 asylum seekers last month.

Slovakia's government had also claimed the free border crossing agreement had "de fact fallen apart".

AP

A refugee faints in the Italian port of Cagliari after being a group were rescued in the Med

AP

Migrants arrive in Athens

As thousands of rail passengers were stranded or delayed by migrants clambering aboard Eurostar trains in Calais, authorities across southern Europe struggled to stem the invasion of desperate refugees.

On another day of high drama in the summer-long migrant crisis 3,000 migrants desperate to reach Germany protested around the main railway station in Hungary’s capital Budapest, shutting the terminal for a second day and threatening to bring more havoc.

In Greece 6,200 migrants were taken by three ferries from two overwhelmed islands to the mainland.

And tourists in the Turkish resort of Bodrum were horrified when the bodies of several migrants - including two small children - washed up on the shore after their tiny boat capsized as they made the perilous 13-mile crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos.

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He said: “While we waited in Calais the train manager told us he believed there were people moving around on top of the train and if we heard them we were to alert a member of staff.

“They had to turn the power off because there people on the roof and the trains are powered by overhead lines.

“The air con was switched off and the lights dimmed. We could hear people moving about on the roof.”

Though he praised the train staff he said Eurostar deserved a “pasting” for the way it handled the broken down train and lack of information.

Another passenger, James Leech, 30, from Buckinghamshire, said: “We could hear someone running across the top of the train, the train manager said over the tannoy to help them out if we heard anything.

“We saw police and train guards searching extensively along the train and they seemed to be focussing around our carriage with dogs.”

George Golesack, 34, from Bethnal Green, east London, said: “People were trying to climb on the train. They were searching for two hours because they said there were people on the roof.

“One woman had a massive panic attack and another woman who was pregnant had to be taken to hospital.”

GETTY

Macedonia is also struggling to deal with the influx of migrants

EPA

In Budapest there are similar scenes

Bridget Roussel, 52, from Greenwich, south-east London, said: “Just before we got to the Tunnel it was chaos. The lights went off and the air conditioning went off, it was so hot.

“It was just disgusting. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life. The worst thing was that there was no communication whatsoever.”

Eurotunnel said migrants are targeting Eurostar trains on French main lines because of increased security measures at the Channel Tunnel.

Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe said: “Since Channel Tunnel security increased over the past few months, we’ve seen the migrant problem displace to other areas as they try to get on to trains before they reach the Tunnel.

Powerful images as migrants protest in Hungary

Tue, April 4, 2017

Migrants protest outside Budapest's Keleti Railway Station after it was closed off by police to prevent people travelling on to western Europe

A migrant taunts Hungarian riot police as they fire tear gas and water cannon on the Serbian side of the border, near Roszke

“They’re stopping trains by blocking the tracks, then trying to get through the Tunnel, but we won’t accept trains with migrants on.”

The firm said it has struck an agreement to work with French national railway operator SNCF on improving security on the lines leading to the Tunnel.

A Eurotunnel spokeswoman said: “This agreement clarifies that Eurotunnel will provide its expertise to SNCF Reseau to erect 13km (8 miles) of high security fencing and to carry out tree felling on the SNCF Reseau site. The works have been identified and will begin in the days ahead.”

Meanwhile Brussels demanded to know why two-thirds of the 90,000 migrants rescued from the Mediterranean and taken to Italy have already vanished - presumably to seek asylum or black market jobs in wealthier northern countries.

On Tyneside Border Force officials found 20 migrants hidden in a lorry ferried over from Amsterdam - and sent 15 of them back immediately.

And Dutch police foiled a plot to smuggle migrants to East Anglia. In the port of Ijumuiden they seized a small yacht with 25 people from Albania and Vietnam crammed on board, along with detailed charts of the Suffolk and Norfolk coasts.

AP

Italy has already lost over 60,000 migrants

AP

In the Czech Republic open borders means migrants are able to come and go

Each migrant is thought to have paid £4,000 for the dangerous journey to a new life in Britain.

As European countries engaged in bitter exchanges last night over how best to resolve the crisis, the EU’s treasured Schengen Agreement of free movement across most of the continent - but which the UK has refused to join - was beginning to crumble.

AP

Syrian refugees leaving a ferry near Athens - around 20,000 have landed on the island of Lesvos

AP

A mum clutches her child after leaving the Athens ferry

Years ago we warned that the EU’s freedom of movement rules allowed traffickers to move people across Europe unimpeded

Peter Bone, Tory MP

At Germany’s request Italy yesterday agreed to tighten border controls and house hundreds of migrants.

At the same time, Italy, Germany and France signed a joint document calling for a review of current EU rules on granting asylum and a “fair” distribution of migrants.

The paper admitted that the current migrant crisis has “clearly shown the limits and defects” of the rules on asylum and that they need to be re-assessed, the countries said in a statement.

But it is now clear that many European member states are now blaming the EU’s Schengen Agreement for the scale of the crisis now overwhelming several of them.

Migrants demonstrate in Budapest after not being allowed to board trains to Germany

Slovakia’s Mr Lajcak said last night: “Schengen has de facto fallen apart. Under normal circumstances, it’s difficult to get a Schengen visa, and now there are tens of thousands of people walking around here without anyone checking them.”

Last night Tory MP Peter Bone, the former chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, laid the blame firmly at Brussels’ door.

He said: “The EU has undoubtedly contributed to this crisis. Years ago we warned that the EU’s freedom of movement rules allowed traffickers to move people across Europe unimpeded.

“But because Brussels was so wedded to the idea of freedom of movement it would do nothing about it. The only way to combat this crisis is to reinstate border controls.

“The Schengen system of passport-free borders means traffickers are driving people across the Continent to reach the countries of their choice.

“Freedom of movement has acted as a pull factor. If all the people claiming asylum knew they had to stay in the first EU country they reached as the rules state, they wouldn’t come.”

Migration Watch deputy chairman Alp Mehmet, a former British ambassador to Iceland, said: “The Schengen arrangements have really exacerbated the whole problem of huge numbers of people looking for asylum and being able to effectively shop around.

“It means that once you have entered the EU you are able to go to any other Schengen country.

“We have people in Turkey, Libya, north Africa looking for a better way of life not fleeing war-torn countries. They can move around until they find a country they want to settle in.

“That encourages people because they know they probably won’t be sent back home.”

EPA

Tents erected to cope with migrants in the Czech Republic at Breclav

UKIP’s migration spokesman, MEP Steven Woolfe, said: “The EU’s shambolic implementation of Schengen and its pursuit of vanity projects like the creation of a European army instead of helping poorer Mediterranean members secure their borders is a reason why Europe is facing its worst migration crisis since the Second World War.”

Among the victims of the deepening crisis were British businessmen and families trapped on Tuesday night for 14 hours on a Eurostar train which stopped two miles outside the Channel Tunnel when it was “surrounded by migrants”.

The crisis caused delays to six trains on Tuesday and two cancellations yesterday morning.

Passengers on the worst-hit train told of hearing people scrambling on the roof and trying to force doors open after the train came to a halt due to migrants on the tracks.

But then the train broke down and they had to endure hours without air conditioning and only dimmed lights.

They told of overflowing toilets and a pregnant woman who became violently ill and fainted, leading to her desperate partner trying to smash the window to let in fresh air.

PR director Simon Gentry, 48, of London firm MWW described the train as “very stinky and hot”.

REUTERS

An African migrant in Gran Canaria, Spain, where 60 people were found on a fishing boat

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He said: “While we waited in Calais the train manager told us he believed there were people moving around on top of the train and if we heard them we were to alert a member of staff.

“They had to turn the power off because there people on the roof and the trains are powered by overhead lines.

“The air con was switched off and the lights dimmed. We could hear people moving about on the roof.”

Though he praised the train staff he said Eurostar deserved a “pasting” for the way it handled the broken down train and lack of information.

Another passenger, James Leech, 30, from Buckinghamshire, said: “We could hear someone running across the top of the train, the train manager said over the tannoy to help them out if we heard anything.

“We saw police and train guards searching extensively along the train and they seemed to be focussing around our carriage with dogs.”

George Golesack, 34, from Bethnal Green, east London, said: “People were trying to climb on the train. They were searching for two hours because they said there were people on the roof.

“One woman had a massive panic attack and another woman who was pregnant had to be taken to hospital.”

EPA

Migrants in Munich queue for transportation after arriving in Germany

EPA

Temporary beds are laid out for migrants in the German town of Stuttgart

Bridget Roussel, 52, from Greenwich, south-east London, said: “Just before we got to the Tunnel it was chaos. The lights went off and the air conditioning went off, it was so hot.

“It was just disgusting. I’ve never experienced anything like that in my life. The worst thing was that there was no communication whatsoever.”

Eurotunnel said migrants are targeting Eurostar trains on French main lines because of increased security measures at the Channel Tunnel.

Eurotunnel spokesman John Keefe said: “Since Channel Tunnel security increased over the past few months, we’ve seen the migrant problem displace to other areas as they try to get on to trains before they reach the Tunnel.

Powerful images as migrants protest in Hungary

Tue, April 4, 2017

Migrants protest outside Budapest's Keleti Railway Station after it was closed off by police to prevent people travelling on to western Europe

A migrant taunts Hungarian riot police as they fire tear gas and water cannon on the Serbian side of the border, near Roszke

“They’re stopping trains by blocking the tracks, then trying to get through the Tunnel, but we won’t accept trains with migrants on.”

The firm said it has struck an agreement to work with French national railway operator SNCF on improving security on the lines leading to the Tunnel.

A Eurotunnel spokeswoman said: “This agreement clarifies that Eurotunnel will provide its expertise to SNCF Reseau to erect 13km (8 miles) of high security fencing and to carry out tree felling on the SNCF Reseau site. The works have been identified and will begin in the days ahead.”